A must read from Open Democracy. Robert Semeniuk reports from the Thai border.

When freedom is denied, the vulnerable become invisible and human rights are held with little respect. Burma spends 2-3% of its budget on health and 40% on its 400,000-strong armed forces. The dictatorship has created a new capital, Naypyidaw, 460 kilometres north of Rangoon; a fortress with boulevards, new buildings, highways, and apartments, carved out of virgin jungle. This is a regime that seeks isolation, the better to sustain its power.

In the meantime millions of Burmese people suffer - from diseases such as malaria, from crushing poverty, and from political repression and denial of their civil and human rights. The accumulating wave of protests from below in August-September 2007 fused their anger, desperation, and longing for a better life. The response from above has been pitiless and continuing persecution. The world looks on and sits by.